Restoring from an OST after re-build new Exch2003

[mt]

The original Exchanger server was gone during disaster.
So a new one was rebuild from scratch with the same Wins/DNS/Domain name.
Identically users name were also created w/ new set of pwd.

The outlook 2003 clients had been using OST before and after the disaster.
But now, the new server is connected. OL Exch Client Profile was
re-created.
Only at that point, we reliazed the OST file was not accessible anymore.
All the old email is gone now.

One thing we did before re-connect to the new server was to
copy the entire directory
C:\Documents and Settings\User1\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
to D:\backup\outlook.

So the OST data should still been there. The problem is how to recover it
back to a form that can be read into OL and re-sync into the new Exhsrv2003?

According to Microsoft suppot web site, this can not be done due to the
built-in security design. (Q163589)

What do you think ?

You help is deeply appreciated.

Sincerely

Meng

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

The original Exchanger server was gone during disaster.

What happened? I'm presuming you didn't have any good backups of this server
or you wouldn't have had to do a complete reinstall. This should not be
allowed to happen again - backups are important!

So a new one was rebuild from scratch with the same Wins/DNS/Domain
name. Identically users name were also created w/ new set of pwd.

So you have an entirely new AD domain, because the SIDs are different, even
if you named everything identically.

The outlook 2003 clients had been using OST before and after the
disaster. But now, the new server is connected. OL Exch Client
Profile was re-created.
Only at that point, we reliazed the OST file was not accessible
anymore. All the old email is gone now.

One thing we did before re-connect to the new server was to
copy the entire directory
C:\Documents and Settings\User1\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
to D:\backup\outlook.

So the OST data should still been there. The problem is how to
recover it back to a form that can be read into OL and re-sync into
the new Exhsrv2003?
According to Microsoft suppot web site, this can not be done due to
the built-in security design. (Q163589)

What do you think ?

You help is deeply appreciated.

Sincerely

Meng

Now that you have orphaned the OST files you will likely need third party
software such as www.exchangerecovery.com to get the data out of them - if
you'd left the old profiles intact, you could've disconnected the computer
from the network, opened Outlook (which would remain offline but open) and
exported to PST.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Do you also have a registry backup from the affected clients? If so, then you could restore it and put the .ost file back in its original location. That would allow the user to launch OUtlook with the original mail profile and export the entire contents of their mailbox (as held in the .ost file) to a Personal Folders .pst file.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers